This Special Issue of Childhood moves beyond stereotypical images of African children to document
the complex ways in which contemporary realities and processes of social transformations shape
and are shaped by children’s everyday lives. In this editorial, we bring together perspectives that
are drawn from 10 articles that report findings from six countries: Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa,
Ethiopia, Uganda and Ghana. The insights generated reveal the importance of looking beyond the
‘deficit’ model of childhood to instead theorize how children, through their engagements in social,
economic, cultural and political life, contribute to the reconfiguration of social and generational
dynamics that unfolds in Africa